Public Financing System Coming Under Fire

Latest Gop Effort To Dump The Fund Is Taken Seriously

WASHINGTON — The public has ignored the presidential public financing system for years. Only about 11 percent of taxpayers check the box on their income tax return to give $3 to the fund.

In 2004, the three top candidates for president -- President Bush and Democrats Howard Dean and John F. Kerry -- declined federal money in the primaries.

And though the fund provided Bush and Kerry $74.6 million each to pay for general election expenses, both candidates still benefited from record amounts of money from private sources.

The fund ``is an antiquated program that continues to spend tens of millions of tax dollars a year,'' said Rep. John T. Doolittle, R-Calif., ``despite overwhelming opposition to the program from both the taxpayer and the candidates.''

Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4th District, and his allies disagree. Most taxpayers may not be using the public financing system, he said, but that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.

``The more your candidate has to worry about raising money,'' he said, ``the less time he has to think about what it takes to be a good president.''

This week, Doolittle and other Republicans plan to try to abolish the fund by attaching their proposal to the budget-cutting package coming before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Though Doolittle has made similar efforts in the past, reformers are taking this attempt very seriously.

Including it among spending cuts aimed at trimming a ballooning federal deficit could make it easier to end public funding. Any such list of cuts is a grab bag of compromises in which people have to accept some things they don't want -- which could make it more likely that some doubters swallow the Doolittle plan.

Reformers also are nervous because the plan has the backing of the conservative Republican Study Group. Group members are trying to assert control over the House GOP, which has been somewhat rudderless since the indictment of Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Public funding advocates have launched their own campaign, arguing that DeLay's troubles and other political scandals brewing should motivate lawmakers to rely less on private campaign money.

``At a time when the American people are deeply concerned about growing issues of corruption and ethics abuses in Congress,'' six reform groups said in a letter to members of Congress last week, ``it would be the height of irresponsibility to terminate one of the nation's most important programs to protect our democracy against corruption ... ''

But the problem the reformers confront is stark: The Watergate-era presidential fund has been springing leaks for years.

It was created as a response to the out-of-control fundraising that led to the Watergate campaign finance scandals and ultimately the 1974 resignation of President Nixon.

Beginning with the 1976 election, presidential candidates were subject to strict spending and fundraising limits during the nomination process. In return for raising money through small contributions, they would get federal dollars to help their efforts.

The fund was credited at the time with keeping huge private donations out of the process. Even then, however, the public was cool to the idea.

Only 27.5 percent of taxpayers checked the contribution box in 1976. The participation rate peaked at 28.7 percent and has fallen steadily since.

To Doolittle, the numbers illustrate that the program is ``tremendously unpopular,'' and it takes money away from more urgent needs.

But Celia Wexler, Common Cause's vice president for advocacy, maintained that the participation rate is low because ``there is absolutely no publicity for this. Tax preparers don't even know about it.''

The fund is also hurt by ``a substantial increase in the number of taxpayers with no tax liability,'' who therefore are not eligible to check the box, and by the lack of any provisions for educating the public, said Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute.

If anything, the reformers said, the current system should be used as a building block for further reforms.

Shays has joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and others to push a plan to increase federal money for the primary campaigns, double to $6 the amount a taxpayer can check off for the fund and use $10 million during the four-year presidential election cycle to educate people about the process.

Shays is concentrating on increasing federal money for the primaries because ``that's when you see candidates opting out of the system.''

Doolittle and his allies contend that the $55 million the campaign fund receives annually could be better used elsewhere.

``The bottom line is that we can either spend taxpayer dollars on partisan campaigns while putting the country further into debt,'' said Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, ``or we can help hurricane victims get back on their feet while not adding to future debt.''